by Simon Asquith, Byron Bay, Australia

My name is Simon. I’m a 38 year old single male and I feel to share how I discovered, and my experience of, Universal Medicine.

At the time, I was a professional musician living a life that I had always dreamed of, and had worked very hard to make a reality. Some years earlier I had left a well paying career that didn’t “make me happy” to pursue my dream to live six months a year during spring and summer in Australia, and then six months a year in spring and summer in Europe, travelling the world performing my own music.

One time, I returned home to Australia and met another musician and his family that were my parents’ neighbours. Not long after, I began working for him helping him tour, as his roadie/sound engineer and selling CD’s. On an early morning drive once, he asked me if I had heard of this guy named Serge Benhayon, and he played a recording of a presentation on the stereo.

I listened for an hour or so, and I remember very well that although I found some of the language unusual, and parts of it a little hard for me to follow, I turned to my friend and just simply said “wow, he really makes a lot of sense, doesn’t he?”.

The following months we listened to more of the presentations when we went away to do shows, and each time I remember how what Serge Benhayon was talking about was not only just making sense and felt relevant to me personally, but it also seemed to connect the dots of the bigger picture of what is going on in the world. I say this having spent a lot of time travelling and meeting new people from all nationalities and cultures: the life of a musician on tour involves a lot of free time to sit in a cafe or on a beach with friends, old and new, or go off on random adventures to new places with local people you meet.

From these adventures and conversations, I was aware of a common thread from so many different perspectives and people with seemingly nothing in common: from street kids in Macedonia, to diplomats in Switzerland, to ‘tradies’ and their families in the streets of Byron Bay, that everyone seemed to be experiencing similar feelings to me that the world is “going a little crazy”. The way Serge presented seemed to address this bigger picture with a perspective that was not quite like anything I had heard before, and again – just made sense.

Not long after starting to listen to the audio, I decided to go and have a session with a practitioner of Esoteric Healing. I didn’t have anything in particular I felt I needed to see someone for, just the usual little niggles and aches and pains, and feeling a little flat. At that time, I felt that I was taking reasonable care of myself. At an earlier time in my life I was overweight by about 25 kilos as the result of an excessive lifestyle (from 18 to 26), working shift work in hospitality and being a musician: my diet was terrible, I drank lots of alcohol and consumed other drugs recreationally. Looking back, I was in pretty bad shape physically and emotionally. But I had made a shift in how I looked after myself almost ten years earlier, and I was now slim. I had quit smoking five years ago; my alcohol consumption had gone from excessive to sparse – I had even gone through phases of 6 to 12 months of not drinking alcohol at all – and drug use of any kind I had let go off a long time before. Those who had known me for a long time were often quite amazed at how well I looked compared to before. I had gone through phases of doing various forms of yoga, I walked and swam for exercise as often as I could, and I would often treat myself to a massage or a spa/sauna as a way to take care of myself. Living in Byron Bay there are a million different techniques and massage/healing modalities to choose from, and I had often used some of those to feel better when I was out of sorts. The idea of trying another one really wasn’t a big deal.

What was a big deal though, was how I felt after the treatment.

The treatment itself was very simple, and gentle: I just lay on the table, fully clothed, and the practitioner asked me how my body felt and listened to what I said. My reply: ‘a little bit of a sore back, a little tired, but nothing major”. And then she said to “just let go and feel whatever comes up”. As I lay there she gently put her hands on parts of my body, my calves, my kidneys, along my spine; at one point, one on my heart, and one on my stomach. But as this was happening I felt myself really able to let go and relax into a place that was very deep and still. I had heard Serge talk about breathing gently through the nose in the short meditations on the audios, and followed along with it (I had tried various form of meditation before, so again no biggie to try another), and as I did this simple ‘Gentle Breath’ breathing technique while the practitioner placed her hands on me I felt my body let go more and more, and a deep sense of awareness of myself. I could feel what I can only describe as a warm glow that seemed to come from inside. I could feel it in my chest. I could feel it in my lungs. I could feel my kidneys get warm from inside as her hands rested on them on my back. My hips and knees just kind of relaxed, all my joints and muscles kept relaxing more and more. I soon just let go and went to a kind of half sleep. It was LOVELY!!! After the session I walked away and spent the rest of the day just being really gentle and still and feeling the effects and enjoying how wonderful I felt. And that night I slept like a baby.

From that experience I started listening to the audios more often and practising the breathing gently through my nose, and found that I could feel that same sense of yumminess. Through doing that more, and starting to feel that with varying degrees of success I was able to connect to that same warm glow again, I began to realise that the way that I really felt for the most part, from day to day, which I had always thought was O.K, actually was not so great. It was like once I felt how good I CAN feel, and started taking the time to regularly let myself connect to that beautiful warm glow inside, the goalposts had moved for what “I feel OK” meant. The more I explored that, the more I realised that I was actually really, really tired for the most part. And although I was seemingly fit and healthy, if I was honest I was also exhausted by the end of each day (actually, by mid-afternoon if not lunch time). Things became much more obvious having that ‘warm glow’ as a comparison, such as when I got moody, when I was angry and short with others around me, or how others’ emotions affected how I felt in my day. I began to notice how often I craved sugar to get me through the afternoon, and how actually those little niggling things like the sore back or knees that I had ‘every now and then’ were there most of the time, but I just didn’t pay attention to them.

And when I compare them to that new version of ‘feeling OK’, these little things in reality felt pretty awful.

About six months after I had heard the audio for the first time I had been to a couple of presentations in person, and while I still had a few reservations, sat at the back, and was studying the various types of people that seemed to be from all walks of life (from doctors and professionals to working class families, to elderly men and women, to teenagers), that guy at the front talking, Serge, just kept on making sense. More sense than anyone else I had ever come across in any talk, any self-help or spiritual book or documentary, any conversation, all around the world. Yes, some of what he said really challenged certain perspectives and widespread beliefs. Yes, some of the language was strange initially.

But there was something simple and solid about what was being presented that just stuck as what I somehow knew to be true inside.

The next thing I did with Universal Medicine was a one-day workshop, then called “Heart Chakra – One”.

$120.00 for a one-day workshop is actually pretty cheap! I’ve paid $300 or more for voice coaching and songwriting workshops. On that day we went through a few techniques – simple and easy ways like breathing gently through the nose and paying attention to that same warm glow. We felt what it was like to connect to that, and be in a conversation with someone who was also connecting to that same feeling in themselves (twice as lovely as doing it by yourself!), and then compared it directly with talking to that same person straight after when you are not connected to that feeling within yourself, or each other. The difference was very clearly discernible and surprisingly vast. And during the day we did a few other exercises that simply involved connecting to that really yummy feeling inside, and doing things while you felt that good. Pretty Simple. And again, pretty awesome. I walked out of there feeling like I had never actually spoken to someone properly before that day. At the time I was a well-spoken, confident, approachable person, but after the workshop I felt like there was this deeper layer underneath that we can communicate with. And I felt like I had connected on a much deeper level with complete strangers than people I had known for years. Old, Young, Male, Female – it didn’t matter. It was easy. It felt natural. And again, it was LOVELY!

That is what Universal Medicine is about. Realising for yourself that there is this beautiful other layer. It’s just inside of you. It’s natural. It’s yummy, and everyone has it. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, where you live or how much money you have… it’s the same for EVERYONE. And if you connect to it, and choose to explore it, it can have a beautiful and profound effect on all areas of your life. It’s like all the goalposts have moved – things naturally start to change. You realise there are things that nurture that beautiful connection and there are things that drastically hinder that connection (and doing the same thing with the connection feels MUCH different than without it). That’s what the workshops and presentations are about. Understanding for myself the things that foster that beauty in me – and understanding the things I choose that prevent me from having it all the time in everything I do.

One of the things I like most about Serge Benhayon is that he is NOT special. He is just a man… a human being. He is just like every single one of us – he walks, he talks, he sleeps, he eats, he works, he has a family; I’m pretty sure he even goes to the toilet. (Actually, I know he does, he talked about it in a presentation once.) But he is a man, a human being, who has felt that connection to the warm glow inside of himself, recognised that it is something real, profound and beautiful, and perhaps against what anyone else has thought or said, followed it all the way and applied it to all those areas of his life. To every area of his life. And he simply presents what he has found for himself in doing that. And there is a wonderful tangible difference that I have felt for myself, as well as seen in him (and many others), that serves as an example.

It is almost four years later, and no-one has ever told me what to do at Universal Medicine; no-one has told me how to think, what courses to do or what to do with my time or money. If I stopped going to presentations no-one would ever worry or even ask me why, and actually – from one workshop I have been presented with enough simple, practical and wonderful information to continue on and change my life for the better in so many ways, without ever having to attend another Universal Medicine event again. Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine have simply presented for me the wonderful gift of what is possible if I truly choose, like Serge has done, to become a student of myself.

It is difficult for me to express how appreciative I am; not sure if words can truly capture it. The depths of tenderness and loveliness that I have found within myself, and the beauty I now recognise in others all around me are beyond what I used to imagine possible. And yet it seems to match the magic that I remember thinking as a child – that this is the way the world is REALLY meant to be. And the level of understanding I have of myself and who I am in the world, my desire to be fully present and active in it, as well as my connection to and involvement with all others around me, grows more and more each day.

Thank you.

Thank you Serge Benhayon.

Thank you to all at Universal Medicine.

From the depths of who I truly am.